Night of the Slightly Tipsy Darien
by AkaiHato
Summary: Ever wondered how Darien's quicksilver gland might affect him when he's not sober?


  
  


-- The Part of the Fanfic That You're Supposed to Read First --  
  


Well, to make sure I won't get into annoying copyright tangles: _The Invisible Man_ is owned by, well, the show that calls itself that. Although the VVSB (Vincent Ventresca Shirtless Brigade) apparently claims, or at least have 'keepers', of Darien's towel, his powdered sugar, etc.  
  


Anyway, I got tired of waiting for an eisode where Darien gets drunk (the present being before the dozenth episode in season one), so I went and typed one my own senario. That doesn't mean that the writers should give up on the idea. In fact, we should all rally to the writers for an episode in which Darien gets drunk.  
  


Or maybe it already happened and I didn't notice (I'm probably one of the one-fourth who misses things entirely). In which case, we should all rally for an encore.  
  


But now for actual information.  
  


-I don't know when the setting is, so don't worry about that.

-The rating is basically G. You probably read so. But it should be known that I've never really seen the point of ratings, and I really don't like putting up with them, so I tend to label everything as "G". But don't worry, no blood 'n guts or major cussing, though there's a small skit in the story which the youngest of readers may not understand.

-There's probably some more things I'm supposed to put in this part, but I can't remember, so that's that. Let's not worry about it.  
  


But without further ado...  
  
  
  
  
  


-- The Actual Story: Night of the Slightly Tipsy Darien --  
  
  
  


It was as the Keeper- a.k.a. "Claire" -brought out a bulging manilla folder from her desk, that the phone rang.  
  


"Keep-"she began.  
  


"Hey! Keeper! You there!?" Agent Hobbes' frantic voice blared though what seemed to be a public phone.  
  


Clair looked annoyed, and idly started flipping though various important looking documents in the manilla folder. "No, I'm actually Scully. I'm subbing the Keeper for today."  
  


"What... Look, you know anything about effects Fawkes' gland thingy has on his brain that you didn't tell us?"  
  


Clair frowned, but didn't stop leafing though the folder she held. "What's wrong? Quicksilver madness?" She had given Darien his shot just today, so it didn't make any sense.  
  


"Worse! He's drunk!"  
  


The Keeper paused flitting the papers. "....What?"  
  
  
  
  
  


- Sometime Before -  
  


"Oh man, I haven't had a good drink in forever. Great place, thanks for bringing me here and treating me, Hobbes."  
  


"Sure, whatever, you need a break... wait, I never said I'd pay for your drinks- You listening? Hey! And how any drinks does that make anyway?"  
  
  
  
  
  


-Near Present-  
  


Hobbes scowled, striding forward as best he could while gripping a besotted, laughing, and slightly reluctant Darien by the arm.  
  
  
  


"Oh c'mon Hobbes, thawasa fine joke back there! You was telling me how I didn't have a head for drinks, so I replied-"  
  


"You quicksilvered neck up and giggled, 'I don't have a head at all'!" As the memory of the bartender and at least a dozen other people he knew scrambling back and screaming and shouting and falling off their stools (and occasionally blinking and looking suspiciously at the drink in front) flashed across his mind, Hobbes threw up his hands in frustration. "I'm never gonna be able to show my face around there! Where am I gonna hit for drinks now?"  
  


"Tha' depends a good deal on where you want to go," began Darien in a slightly mocking voice, turning himself invisible, except for (amazingly enough) his lower face, meaning all that was left of him was a grin.  
  


Hobbes felt tendrils of liquid chill, that could only mean quicksilver, trickling and covering part of his hand. He turned around. "Look, my friend, whatever you're trying to pull- YAAGH! Don't ever do that again!"  
  


Darien grinned even more, then hiccuped. A moment later a shower of quicksilver came sprinkling down, though Darien seemed to have forgotten to get the stuff off his upper right arm, both feet, a good section of his upper torso, and left ear. All in all, he looked quite interesting.  
  


While Darien blinked and seemed amused at his incomplete shedding of invisibility, Hobbes grabbed him by the arm again and headed for a payphone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


"...Look, I'm just worried that the gland might affect Fawkes', er, level of intoxication, or something worse. Though what, I don't know."  
  


The Keeper frowned, as she heard Darien, in the background, declaring he would recite the song of the Mock Turtle Soup. Or something like that. "I can't imagine how, though I know that emotions are tied in with the gland, and so is alcohol..."  
  


She was interrupted by Darien, who seemed to have staggered near the phone booth."...Shoo-oop of the e-ee-evening, beautiful, beauti-FUL SOUP!"  
  


"Um, just get him back to Fish and Games Headquarters."  
  


"I'm on that."  
  


As the Keeper hung up, she heard Hobbes yell, "Fawkes, snap out of it, man!"  
  


"Not until we figger out who stole the tarts!" insisted Darien.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


"I liked it better when you got quicksilver madness, my friend," muttered Hobbes as he dragged Darien -who for no apparent reason was dramatically, and pretty drunkenly, narrating what appeared to be Shakespeare, going from _TheTempest_ to _Macbeth_ with random other bits stuck in- inside the Keeper's lab.  
  


"...Cauldron burn... and fire bubble!" he said, sweeping his arm in the directions of the Keeper's various chem (and otherwise) lab equipment, and wacking Hobbes in he face as he did so.  
  


"Hey! Hey!"As an afterthought, Hobbes added, "....Cauldron and fire *what*?"  
  


"And get away from those chemicals!" said the Keeper sharply, moving towards Darien, who was haphazardly moving back as he launched into another performance ("And some have greatness THRUST upon them!"). "Those have fumes that-"  
  


"...By the prickin' of my thumb, something evil-" Bump, topple, CRASH! "-this way comes.... whoo, wazziz!?"  
  


"Oh crap," muttered Hobbes, putting a hand to his head and stepping in a hopeless sort of way into the other room.  
  


"Hey, ya stole my line," complained Darien mildly, lurching slightly.  
  
  
  


The Keeper had enough. Striding over, she began, "Listen, Darien, I'm going to have to use a sedative if you don't..."  
  


Grinning, Darien grabbed the Keeper. "What-" she began. Without warning, Darien dramatically swept her back, then kissed her.  
  
  
  


Hobbes, turning around to say something, abruptly stopped. After a moment, he hesitatingly flicked his fingers towards the back of the room he was in, and awkwardly asked, "You guys, uh, want me somewhere else?"  
  


It turned out Hobbes didn't have to move. Still grinning and probably none too keen on his actions, Darien finally let the Keeper go, then dashed over to the lab entrance, punched a button, and sped out the door. "See ya later, people!"  
  


After a moment, the Keeper and Hobbes finally reacted. "Get back here!" "Security!"  
  


"Nyah-Nyah!" came Darien's voice from somewhere down the hall, as various personnel raced after him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


"He's has not only full quicksilvering potential, but he's drunk?" quietly asked the Official, his not-quite-but-pretty-close-basilisk-stare sliding from Hobbes to the Keeper and back again. Hobbes, seemingly fascinated by pictures of various fish on the wall, avoided eye contact. So did the Keeper, though mostly because she seemed a little zoned out. "Well?"  
  


"Oh, um, I'm not sure if 'drunk' is the right word. Intoxicated, yes, but not staggering around with obvious lack of muscle coordination," explained the Keeper, blinking as she realized she was being addressed.  
  


"In fact, I'd say he had considerable hand-eye, er, mouth coordination," said Hobbes in a tone of voice that shrieked 'HIDDEN MEANING!', especially as he shifted his glance to the Keeper.  
  


Eberts pretended to be mesmerized by the window blinds, a somber expression forced on his face, although he was clearly struggling to keep it in check.  
  


The official sighed.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


"All things considered, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was to be," commented the Keeper, though wether she was being sarcastic or completely honest was hard to tell, or wether she was even talking about the meeting with the Official or recent events in general.  
  


The Official, as if realizing the absurdity/improbability of catching Darien with the Keeper and Hobbes, had told them to stay at the HQ and instead try to assess where Darien might have gone. Or rather, that was the short version.  
  


Hobbes absently shrugged and flicked on the TV. "At least you didn't have to drag around a guy who spouts random quotes at any given interval." He seemed distracted; downright worried, in fact. Even though, again, it was hard to tell wether he was talking about recent events or just everyday dealings.  
  
  
  


Claire was silent for a while, then finally stated, "Darien... had better be all right."  
  


Hobbes, who was sitting sideways to her, looked at her in what might have been mild surprise.  
  


Claire seemed to have not noticed, and rambled on. "If he's drunk, or whatever his current state is, there's no telling what he'll do."  
  
  
  


Abruptly, she half-blurted, half-declared, "I can't believe Darien went and kissed me like that!" with a bang of her fist on a nearby shelf to emphasize her statement.  
  
  
  


The Keeper pretended to ignore Hobbes, who was (unsuccessfully) trying to stifle his laughter. Finally she glared at him, and Hobbes quickly resumed a poker face. (Anyone else glaring might have not achieved the same effect, but remember, this was the *Keeper*.)  
  


"You have something to say?" she asked coldly.  
  


Hobbes didn't reply, but channel-flipped for a while until he came into a news break. "Well, you know how when some people get drunk, they have a tendency to rant about what's been hanging on their minds?"  
  


An interesting expression flickered across Claire's face. "So kissing me was something he's been wanting to do all along?" she asked. "I figured something like that..." She paused. "What else is he thinking, anyway?"  
  


At that moment, the TV blared something. "...Special news just in. Apparently a ghost of some sort has been sighted flying down the nearby streets, unearthly moaning and howling accompanying it. Witnesses say it looks remarkably like a sheet with someone underneath or towing it, but as there were no evident lines towing it or anyone underneath the sheet, they assume otherwise."  
  


The Keeper and Hobbes exchanged looks.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The pale morning dawn greeted Darien. Darien greeted it back with a sneeze, completely waking himself up from his semi-conscious daze. He blinked groggily, and wondered why he was sitting hidden between two dumpsters at the edge of a park close to the Fish and Games HQ. Then he started to wonder how exactly it was that he had gotten there, and why he was curled up in a sheet.  
  


In fact, if anyone else then Darien was in the same situation, they might have panicked or reacted in some other unmannerly way; but thanks to general turns and events in his life, Darien was somewhat used to surrealism.  
  


Though the tattooed serpent on his wrist told him it he was borderline in his QS limit, Darien suspected that the source of his pounding headaches was elsewhere, as well as that awful taste in his mouth. Then he started wondering *why* it was borderline, or rather, *when* and *how* how had he used that quicksilver.  
  


Either way, he struggled up, then started to make his way back to the HQ, ignoring his headaches as well as something in the back of his mind telling him he really, really didn't want to go back.  
  
  
  
  
  


Darien was so intent on trying to recall last night's events, that he didn't notice when he came into HQ and crashed straight into Hobbes, rounding the corner.  
  


"Hey, buddy, watch where... Fawkes!" shouted Hobbes in surprise, his sleepless-looking eyes growing wide. "Fawkes, where've you been, you idiot! The entire place is in a mess, trying to look for you! We though you'd gone and drowned or hit by a car or fallen off a cliff or somehow killed your self-"  
  


Darien held up a hand. "Whoa, slow down, Hobbes, what's going on? What, uh, happened last night?" He glanced down at his arm. "And why am I carrying a sheet?"  
  


"Oh, so that *was* you. What, you don't remember a thing? Ok, last night, I took you out from some drinks, which I ended up paying for - even though I specifically told you I wasn't doing that - because I had to drag you out of there."  
  


When Hobbes had reached the word, 'drinks,' Darien's expression suddenly shifted, from befuddlement to recognition to amusement to doubt (as if he didn't really believed what he remembered), but by the time Hobbes had finished speaking, Darien still looked mildly confused. "Ok, so I was drunk, and I remember up to when you dragged me into the Keeper's lab." Darien paused. "Was I really reciting Shakespeare?"  
  


"Yes! You want me to go over which acts and scenes? You made sure to mention them each time. No guarantee your labeling was actually accurate, but-"  
  


"Uh, anyway, what happened after that?"  
  


Hobbes suddenly acquired an expression between sly and awkward. "Well, I decided to leave you two to your own company, just remember that."  
  


Darien twisted his mouth into a sly smile, narrowed one eye and raised the eyebrow of the other, and crossed his arms, before pausing to state in a skeptical opinion, "What?"  
  


Just then, Eberts poked his head out of a nearby door. Seeing Darien, he looked appropriately surprised and relieved, hurrying over. "Agent Fawkes! Good to see you alive! I mean, glad to see you." He glanced at the sheet Darien had in his arm. "Ah, that's the infamous sheet?"  
  


Darien's sly eloquence fumbled a little as more confusion came into his face, but Eberts didn't seem to notice and went on."You realize, of course, that the Official wants to see you."  
  


Eberts hesitated, then added, "I heard what you did with the Keeper."  
  


Darien's sly expression dropped completely. "What? What did I do?"  
  


"Well, I'm basing this on the Keeper's distracted and somewhat dazed appearance in the Official's office, after you ran away from us-"  
  


"Dazed? What do you mean- what did I-" Suddenly the gut feeling and the present conversation clashed, and Darien almost staggered. "Oh my god... you mean I...?"  
  


Both Eberts and Hobbes thought Darien might have been over-reacting, but they nodded anyway.  
  


"Oh crap... what if she gets.... but I can't face her..."  
  


Darien suddenly burst into a sprint towards the Keeper's lab without explanation, waving off Hobbes' accompanying, "Hey! Ignoring the Official isn't smart, my friend!"  
  


"You think he might have taken that in a wrong way?" pondered Eberts aloud, as Darien disappeared around the corner.  
  


Hobbes shrugged.  
  
  
  
  
  


Claire looked up, annoyment sprinkled on her face as she saw a frantic Darien come dashing in.  
  


Darien seemed to cringe, interpreting the Keeper's expression from what it actually meant. "Um, Claire, about what I did last night..." He trailed off awkwardly, not quite sure what to say.  
  


The Keeper blinked. Then her expression seemed to melt away, as the barest hints of a smile beginning to tug at the corners of her mouth. "Well, the experience was... interesting."  
  


"Interesting....?" Relief slowly bloomed in Darien's expressions. "You're... not mad?" Then he looked a little curious. "But what was that supposed to mean?"  
  


"Well, it might have been because you were intoxicated -with those fumes, especially, and it was interesting how your quicksilvering abilities may have affected your state - but anyway, you weren't... too... good at it."  
  


"I wasn't?" asked a partly abashed and partly annoyed Darien, who also might have been wondering about the quicksilver bit. Then he tagged the latter remark. "Aaand.... what was *that* supposed to mean?"  
  


"I've had better," shrugged the Keeper.  
  


Darien looked even more annoyed. "You have?"  
  


"Yes! What, did you thing that you were the first? I'm not *that* much of a geek."  
  


"Um, what did you mean again, that I wasn't good at it?" quickly shifted Darien.  
  


The Keeper tilted her head a bit, as if to wrack her brains for the right description."Well, to be honest, it was a bit like being kissed by a large, slobbering dog-"  
  


"A dog!? What the crap is *that* supposed to..." Suddenly, her actual statement clicked with Darien. "Wait, did you say I *kissed* you?"  
  


"Yes, what did you think I was referring to?" commented the Keeper absently.  
  


"...Never mind that. I think I'll, um, go see the Official or something now." Wondering how exactly it was that he ever mistook the situation, Darien was about to turn around, when he paused and glanced down at what he held in his arm, to which Claire had just given an amused look at. "Why am I carrying a sheet? And why does everyone, except me, know why?"  
  
  
  


What happened next could merely be summarized like this.  
  
  
  


For a moment, Claire didn't answer. Finally, slowly turning away so that Darien couldn't see her face, she replied. "You have an interesting mind, Agent Fawkes. Very... interesting."  
  
  
  
  
  


But obviously, there must have been something in her voice. Or maybe Darien got a glimpse of her face before she turned around.  
  


Or maybe it was a combination of subtle things, the kind of elusive communication that one-half of anyone watching the scene would sort of understand, one-fourth would deeply appreciate in it's worth, and the other one-fourth...would miss entirely.  
  


Whatever it was, Darien, for the first time in a long while, slowly smiled.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


And so the story of the Night of the Slightly Tipsy Darien ends. Well, to be precise, there's a few more things that need to be said.   
  
  
  


(-- Place Where "Epilouge" Would Be, Even Though It's Pretty Evident-- )  
  
  
  


Eventually Darien got full account what happened that night. Or at least, what Claire, Hobbes, and the Agency knew about- and more.  
  


To be precise: it was, in fact, Hobbes who had the most fun for the next few weeks. Since Darien pretty much had no recollection what had happened that night, Hobbes amused himself by dropping tantalizing bits and hints to Darien of what had happened, then, after a while, decided to occasionally mix in his own embellishments.  
  


Which meant that Darien spent some time wondering about his psyche, until the Keeper finally told him that he had *not* sang and danced the "Hey Macarina" song in his undergarments in front of everyone, including the Keeper.  
  


But aside from such incidences, business went as usual in the Agency, or as usual could be said.  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
